My New Year's Resolution in 2012 was to be a better, more confident cook . I hoped to use this blog to chronicle my culinary adventures (and misadventures). Ever since, I have been hooked, and the kitchen is my happy place! I have also become a vegetarian in that time. I may cook some weird things, but they're really good! Trust the vegetarian, okay?

Recipe Index

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Breakfast Cupcakes

I think I've said this before, but I think breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. This is unfortunate because I very rarely eat breakfast. I'm the kind of girl who wakes up, hits snooze as many times as she can, showers and is ready to go in 30 minutes. This rushed, hectic morning is pretty terrible (goal in life: change my morning craziness, preferably before we have kids) and leaves no time for breakfast. If I'm lucky, I can grab a granola bar, or a veggie egg white flatbread from Dunkin' Donuts if I'm doing great on time. But never do I have a good old salty breakfast - no sweet stuff like pancakes for me. This is one of my favorite parts about summer: I have time to make breakfast if I feel like. I must admit that Mark makes the best breakfasts so I rarely have the chance to go up against his to-die-for hash browns or stuffed French toast, but this morning I decided to whip up something amazing for Mom and me. I have a Pinterest board dedicated to interesting breakfast ideas, and this was one that caught my attention immediately: breakfast cupcakes. Hash brown crust, scrambled egg top, filled with whatever your heart desired - and all in an adorable muffin form (great for grab and go!). I was very intrigued.

These aren't exactly the quickest breakfast dish since the hash brown crust has to be baked for 45 - 55 minutes. Once the crust comes out all golden brown and delicious looking, you smoosh it down to make room for the egg and cheese filling. The recipe calls for bacon to be added, which I did for half of the cupcakes; the other half I left with just eggs and cheese; but i think next time I will add some fresh herbs and vegetables, kind of like an omelet. Then you bake them one last time, and voila: breakfast cupcakes!

Breakfast cupcakes are adorable and simple. They are also very delicious; let's just say Mom and I decided that the serving size was definitely 4 cupcakes ;) But I can't overlook the problem in this recipe: they stuck to the foil wrappers. Badly. As in, you had to scrape them out with forks and spoons and knives and still end up losing most of the hash brown crust. Why this happened, I am not sure. I greased the muffin cups pretty well. I am curious to see if it would happen if I made this in a casserole dish rather than muffin cups. Maybe it would stick less (maybe it would stick more!?). It was definitely a problem but not one that makes me want to give up on this recipe. The cupcakes were too tasty to abandon the idea; everyone who tried one loved them (they just had to work really hard to get them out!)